Over the years, the popularity of online communities, such as social and professional-networking websites, messages boards, and peer-to-peer communities, has grown dramatically. In addition to providing other services, online communities may provide users with a platform to interact with and meet other users or further career-related pursuits. For example, users of social-networking sites, such as MYSPACE and FACEBOOK, may create and expand a personal network of friends by locating and connecting with old friends or by discovering and inviting new friends to join their personal network. Similarly, users of professional-networking sites, such as LINKEDIN, may extend their professional network of business or career-related contacts by locating and inviting other users to join their professional network.
While online communities provide many useful services to their members, the increasing number and types of online communities available to a single user may prove problematic. For example, a user may spend extensive time and effort creating and managing a first online community, only to find that they must repeat the same process again upon joining a second online community. Moreover, even if a user expends the time and effort required to create multiple online communities, an even greater amount of time and effort may be required to keep each of these online communities synchronized and up-to-date.